Take My Heart
by xfirefly9x
Summary: Scully/Mulder. Mulder has been hospitalised by a gunman who he thinks is somehow interfering with their current case. Is he right? MSR eventually.
1. Hospital

Take My Heart

Mulder lay in the sterilised hospital bed, his eyes closed lightly, but sleep as far away as it could possibly be. Several plastic tubes ran from his arm to the IV machine off to the side and a single "Get Well" card sat on the table next to him. It was from Scully, his only visitor.

She had been determined to stay with him in case anything happened (such as the gunman coming after him again) but he'd told her to go home and get some sleep. After pleading with her for several minutes, she'd been as close to convinced as she was going to get and had reluctantly left him.

That had been hours ago, and Mulder was beginning to wish that she'd ignored his request and stayed. He was going mad, couped up in the room with nothing to do.

Sighing wearily, Mulder licked at his dry, cracked lips, before glancing up at the latest nurse as she came in the door. She moved over to the IV machine and checked that everything was working properly, then turned and exited without a word.

Mulder groaned softly to himself as she disappeared from sight. He should've tried talking to her. A conversation would've been a great way to get his mind off things. At the moment, pretty much anything could help with that.

The constant bustle of nurses to and from his room, and out in the hallway had refused to let his mind relax for all the time that he'd been there, and it didn't seem likely to change any time soon. Painful images kept going through his mind and he couldn't for the life of him shut them off.

Mulder tiredly repositioned himself in the bed and grimaced as a shot of pain stabbed through his chest. He continued to move into a more comfortable pose, slowly falling into a trance-like state and absently replaying the moments when he had been wounded over and over in his mind…

He hated that he had let it happen. It had been stupid and he'd never forget how recklessly he'd acted.

He'd been chasing after a gunman who had interfered with their latest case for some unknown reason. There had been several theories put forward by other officers, but nothing was solid so far and no connections had been made that joined the case to the gunman.

Anyhow, he had been careless, more so than he cared to admit. He hadn't seen the gun hooked into the back of the offender's pants and when the man had stopped and turned the weapon on him, he'd been caught off guard.

He wasn't going to let that happen again. Ever.

He was stuck in hospital now, with a bullet wound to the chest and the numbing sensation of boredom drilling painfully at his brain. It was not something he really enjoyed doing, and it definitely wasn't on his list of things to do for a second time around, either.

Mulder sighed again for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. He was so bored! He needed to do something, anything! The room he was currently in was becoming more and more like a prison cell by the minute – except a lot cleaner and with a strong aroma of antiseptics.


	2. Going Over The Case

Fast, anxious footsteps suddenly broke Mulder out of his reverie and he glanced towards the door as his partner rushed in, worry lines marking her face. Something bad had obviously happened since she'd left him there earlier – her eyes were red from crying and she wore no make-up as she usually did.

"Mulder!" she sighed in relief when she saw him. "I heard that…" Scully let her words fade out, unable to finish. She moved over to stand by Mulder's bed and looked down at him, studying him carefully to make sure he was still in one piece.

"Scully," Mulder said comfortingly, catching her concerned gaze. "I'm alright."

Scully nodded, seemingly more at ease. "Good," she whispered, placing her suitcase on the floor and glancing around the room. She finally saw what she was looking for and moved across the room to pull a chair over. Settling down into it, she blinked back the tears that were threatening to fall and rubbed tiredly at her eyes.

"I was told that the gunman had escaped…" she explained to her partner finally.

"Escaped?" Mulder sat up quickly, suddenly wide-awake. He groaned as another round of pain hit him and Scully reached over and caught his hand in hers.

"Mulder! Are you sure you're okay?" Scully asked, leaning in over him.

He nodded and eased himself back down into bed slowly, careful not to disrupt his injury again. "I'll be fine," he assured her. "Just…tell me about the gunman."

"Um…okay…" Scully nodded. "Skinner has word that the guards down at the detention centre were slacking off and the gunman managed to get past them. No one has ever escaped from there before, so they don't know how he did it."

"Do you think it could be an X file?" Mulder questioned, looking up thoughtfully.

Scully shrugged. "It's doubtful but I wouldn't cross it out."

"And what has Skinner got you doing? You're not continuing the case on your own, are you?"

"Oh, no. Agent Bailey and his partner have the case now. They passed it on to him when you were hospitalised," Scully informed him. "I've been putting together some notes of my own, though…"

Mulder nodded appreciatively. "What've you got?"

"Not much. I couldn't get access to most of the files," Scully said as she reached into her suitcase and pulled out a sheaf of papers. She flipped through them and handed several of the files to Mulder.

"His name is Thomas Wall. He's 35 years old, lives alone in an apartment on Seagrove Avenue and has no living relatives."

"He's clean?" Mulder asked, scanning the pages in front of him.

"Yup. No criminal record," Scully replied. She wiped her forehead with the palm of her hand and pushed a strand of stubborn red hair behind her ear. "There's nothing of use here as far as I can tell."

"Okay…no, wait…" Mulder muttered.

Scully glanced at him curiously and leant over to look at the file he was currently studying. "What is it?"

"It says here that he's been hospitalised 8 times in the past 3 years, each time for cardiac arrest."

"Are you saying that he's had 8 heart attacks?" Scully looked at him sceptically.

Mulder opened his mouth to answer, but immediately closed it as a nurse wandered in. Scully turned to face their intruder, too, nodding a quick hello to her.

"Oh, you have a visitor!" The nurse smiled apologetically. "Mrs Mulder, is it?"

Scully turned a deep shade of red and shook her head furiously. "No. I'm Mulder's partner. We work together," she explained hurriedly.

"Right," the nurse smiled enigmatically at her. Scully noted the disbelief in her voice and sighed wearily. Why was it that people thought they were a couple? It had happened several times before and each time was just as unnerving as the last.

Beside her, Mulder grinned widely at the nurses' comment and went on to introduce them. "Yeah, this is Agent Dana Scully," he told the nurse. "And, Scully, this is Marissa Davies, my nurse. She's been sneaking me magazines and the like in her breaks."

"Speaking of magazines…" Marissa smiled at him and handed over a stack of the most recent publications and a copy of the daily paper. "I bought them for you when I went out for lunch a few hours ago."

"Mulder. You've only been here one day!"

"One day? It feels more like week!" He grinned playfully at her and turned his attention back to Marissa. "Thanks for these! It's been beyond boring since our last chat, this morning."

"No problem!" Marissa winked at him and gestured at Scully. "I 'spose you want some privacy now, so your girlfriend here can fuss over you."

"Girlfriend?" Scully protested, weakly.

Marissa just gave her a knowing look and without another word, left them alone.


	3. Possibilities

**A/N: Sorry for the wait! I've been working on ideas for this, so I hope that a good enough excuse. Plus, I've had tonnes of exams, assignments, homework and a little writer's block. Anyway, I hope you like it and please review!**

"So…what were we talking about?" Mulder asked Scully. He knew perfectly well what it was, but thought it might cut the tension that had filled the room. He looked up at his partner expectantly.

Scully's cheeks still flamed a shade of red and she seemed to be avoiding his gaze, which was good, considering that Mulder found himself quite unable to hide the smile that remained on his face from Marissa's comment about them dating.

"What?" she asked, slowly glancing up to meet his eyes. She didn't react in any way to his obvious amusement and Mulder was sure that she hadn't even picked it up.

"The case," Mulder prompted, grinning wider at her discomfort. "What was I saying?"

"Oh…uh…Thomas Wall. Cardiac arrest," Scully muttered, grateful for the change of subject. A newfound interest on the topic suddenly overcame her, pushing away the embarrassment and she jumped back into the conversation they'd been having as if nothing had happened with the nurse.

"So how is it that he had 8 heart attacks, Mulder? It's a medical impossibility! That much strain on his heart should have killed him!" She ran her fingers through her hair and stared at him sceptically, her brow furrowed as she attempted to run through the possibilities in her mind.

Coming up with nothing, she sighed and waited for the inevitable, far-fetched theory that Mulder was sure to come out with. Sure enough, the contemplative spark that was customary to her partner glinted in his eyes and he nodded slowly in agreement before speaking.

"Well, I've had a lot of time to think about this," Mulder started, "and I definitely think there's a connection between Wall and our case. In fact, I think our killer may be Wall himself."

"I'm not sure about that, Mulder. Unless you think that Wall can astral project? He has an alibi for the first two murders. If this is a serial killer that we're dealing with as all the details say it is, it just doesn't fit," Scully reasoned. "And there's no evidence that suggests that he had anything to do with it either."

"I know that. And no, I don't think Wall can astral project. Maybe he has an accomplice working with him. I just know he's in on it somehow." Mulder sighed, knowing that Scully had a point. They didn't have enough to go on.

He couldn't push the theory out of his mind though. His gut told him to follow up on it, so that's what he was going to do. Even if it meant going against his partner's wishes and moving into something blindly.

"Do you have any other ideas?" Scully asked, knowing not to push Mulder's theory out of the water any more than she already had. His instincts had often led them to the truth and there was nothing to prove that he wasn't right this time as well.

"That's it," Mulder replied reluctantly. "Chances are it was just a coincidence that Wall shot me. Wrong place, wrong time, I guess."

"Maybe." Scully watched her partner, taking in the seriousness of his nature. He truly seemed to believe that Wall was somehow involved in their murder case. She really wanted to accept his claim but without the evidence, they had nothing.

Sighing, she sat back in her seat and the two agents fell silent as they tried to work out what had happened.


	4. Pain

"Maybe," Mulder suddenly started, "he didn't have eight heart attacks."

Scully glanced up from the file she'd been looking at and shot him a questioning look. "I don't know what you mean."

"What if his files are fake? They could have been altered to put us off the scent of what's really going on here. Maybe it's all a diversion."

"Yes, that would be plausible," Scully nodded slowly, placing her file on the table next to Mulder's bed. "But who –?"

"Who changed the file, you mean?" Mulder interrupted. Without waiting for Scully to respond, he continued on. "It seems likely that Wall had an accomplice. Someone was covering for him."

Scully glanced towards the door of Mulder's room and chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. "How can you tell?" She gestured for him to wait as a nurse appeared in the doorway and looked in. Assuming she was just going on her rounds, Scully brushed her off and turned back to Mulder.

After a moment, the nurse left and Mulder looked back over at Scully. "Firstly, that nurse there – she's been checking in on my room every so often."

"She's a nurse! That's her job!" Scully said pointedly. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Have I ever told you that you're the most paranoid person I've ever met? Excepting the Lone Gunmen, of course."

"Gee, thanks. It's so nice to know you've got me so high up there on your paranoid list," Mulder said sarcastically. "Anyway, that's not the case. We've got a serial killer out there, someone who wants me dead – who may just be the killer we've been looking into – and if the killer isn't the man who shot me, most probably something else linking the two. And there's quite possibly an accomplice working behind all of this, which I believe _could_ be the nurse."

"That just about sums it up," Scully nodded slowly. "So what now then, G-man?"

Mulder remained silent for a while, apparently deep in thought. It wasn't until he spoke again that Scully realised there was something terribly wrong.

"Sc…Sc…Scully?" Mulder muttered desperately. He reached for her hand and gripped it tightly, staring up at her and giving a sudden, unexpected grimace of pain. "It…it hurts…"

A wave of fear for her partners' well being washed over Scully and she squeezed his hand back in a gesture of what she hoped he'd take as comfort. When Mulder didn't respond and instead, fell back limply onto his bed, it took all of her strength not to break down.

Taking the alternative, she pushed the worry to the back of her mind as far as it would go – which wasn't far – and raced into the hall. "Nurse! We need some help in here! Now!"

**A/N:** Nothing better than a little health scare, huh? Or is it something more?


End file.
